Award season is approaching its finale with the 96th Academy Awards airing this Sunday. 2023 was an incredible year for movies, and deciding a winner for any category is a seemingly challenging pick; legendary directors like Martin Scorsese and Christopher Nolan returned to the silver screen with epic biopics, avant-garde weirdos like Yorgos Lanthimos and Jonathan Glazer saw great success with daring films and millions celebrated the internet phenomenon Barbenheimer with “Barbie” grossing over a billion dollars at the box office. As we near the ultimate night for movies, The Pace Press reflects on this past award season to predict who will score big at the Oscars.
“Oppenheimer” leads with the most Oscar nominations of the year with 13. The wartime biography has won almost every Best Picture nomination it’s been up for this year, including the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) and the Golden Globes; it would be no surprise to see the film win Best Picture this Sunday. Many feel that director and writer Christopher Nolan is long overdue for an Academy Award, with this being his second nominee as a director and third as a screenplay writer, and his ongoing sweep will most likely continue to the Oscars. Like Nolan, supporting actor Robert Downey Jr. is nominated for the third Oscar of his career as the paranoid Lewis Strauss and gives one of (if not the) best performances of his career thus far.
First-time Oscar nominee Cillian Murphy, who played the father of the atomic bomb, has an almost guaranteed win this Sunday (much to the dismay of Bradley Cooper). After taking home a BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award, The Hollywood Reporter predicted Murphy has a 76.9 percent chance of winning the Oscar this Sunday.
The only person giving Murphy a run for his money is Paul Giamatti in the Christmas feel-good dramedy, “The Holdovers.” In January, Giamatti took home the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy and celebrated his win at In-N-Out. Supporting lady Da’Vine Joy Randolph has been on a roll this season, having won nearly every award she’s been up for; Randolph has a whopping 91.3 percent chance of winning for her performance as Mary Lamb, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Martin Scorsese’s harrowing crime drama “Killers of the Flower Moon” is nominated for ten Oscars, and although it has not won many awards, with the exception of Best Actress, it could easily win in any category it’s nominated in. The film is recognizably Scorsese and gripping from start to finish, with a masterfully evil performance from Robert De Niro that challenges “Oppenheimer” in what a biopic can be capable of.
Lily Gladstone, nominated for her leading part as Mollie Kyle in “Killers of the Flower Moon” should–and will most likely–win this Sunday. Gladstone gives a once-in-a-generation role as Mollie and utilizes body language and silence to her advantage to deliver a monumental portrayal of the Osage member. On top of the outstanding performance, this would make Gladstone the first Indigenous person to win an Academy Award.
“Poor Things,” the raunchy fantasy film from director Yorgos Lanthimos, follows “Oppenheimer” with scoring the most nominations at 11. Despite incredible performances from Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo, either will unlikely take home a win over the frontrunners in their respective categories. “Poor Things” does have a high chance of winning in more technical categories like Cinematography, Production Design and Makeup and Hairstyling, as it created a fabulously surreal world with its unique Victorian-steampunk aesthetic.
To many filmgoers’ surprise, Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, who directed and starred in “Barbie,” respectively, did not receive nominations in those respected categories. Gerwig, though, is nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay and Robbie for Best Picture as a producer on the 4th-wall-breaking comedy. Ryan Gosling received two nominations, one for Best Supporting Actor and Best Original Song for “I’m Just Ken.” Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” (which won a Grammy last month) is nominated alongside “I’m Just Ken” and is most likely to earn her a second Oscar. The fashion in “Barbie,” which is central to the movie’s image, pays homage to the iconic doll by referencing both classic and niche looks.
Sandra Hüller starred in two films that received five Oscar nominations each: the historical horror film “The Zone of Interest” and the courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall,” the latter of which earned her a nomination for Best Lead Actress. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Anatomy of a Fall” has a 42.8 percent chance of winning Best Original Screenplay from director and writer Justine Triet and co-writer Arthur Harari.
Over the past few years, the Oscars have had a trend of nominating one international film in the Best Picture category due to the monumental success of “Parasite” at the 92nd Academy Awards. With “The Zone of Interest” being the only film nominated for Best Picture and Best International Feature, it will presumably win the latter. This isn’t to say the film doesn’t deserve that win, though, as the unsettling Holocaust film pushes the boundaries of historical drama and borders on dystopian horror.
Many felt some actors were overlooked at the Oscars, and not just Robbie. Greta Lee and Teo Yoo, the leading couple in the heartbreaking drama “Past Lives,” did not receive nominations in the lead acting categories, and Dominic Sessa, the breakthrough actor in “The Holdovers,” was not nominated for Best Supporting Actor. “Godzilla Minus One” is a visually beautiful and introspective film that deserves more nominations than just Visual Effects and could’ve easily fit in within the Best International Feature category. Surprisingly, “The Iron Claw,” the intense wrestling drama following the Von Erich dynasty, received zero nominations. Overall, though, the Academy picked a solid group of films that highlight some of the most creatively ambitious and visceral films released within the past year.
The Oscars are Sunday, March 10 at 7 pm ET, and streaming on ABC.com and Hulu.
